Individual Containers of Crap

A Frug Rant about Doubling Down on Duplication

By Brad Beckstrom

Okay, once a while I just need to do a quick rant to get something off my chest. In this case, about 40 plastic bottles of shampoo, conditioner and body wash.

Growing up, we had two types of shampoo (Pert and Head & Shoulders) and a bar of soap, usually Dial, or if someone got fancy, “Irish Spring.” In college, I had a roommate who shaved, showered and shampooed with one bar of soap. He was ahead of his time.

Alas, my simple living college days are over. With a teenager, a tween and my lovely wife SuperK, the shampoo, conditioner, body wash situation has gotten a bit out of control. I did a quick count including our three bathrooms and various other cabinets around the house. Grand total: 41 bottles of shampoo, conditioner, face soap, and body wash.

We may be uniquely ridiculous in this regard but I was so fascinated, I needed to share it. Turns out, with all the different flavors of body washes and rinses and shampoos, the kids and SuperK have been trying certain products out, then not finishing the less popular ones.

Looks like a lot of these bottles just get chucked in cabinets or put into the rarely used basement bathroom. I guess we’re hoping some guest will love one of the seven or eight bottles of three-year-old shampoos that we’ve displayed for them. There was also a dog shampoo in the basement bathroom. I did not include that in the total count.

I have no problem with grooming but we need to really work on using up all of these individual containers of crap. I tried setting an example by complaining to the family about it at dinner, letting them know that I was personally using up all of their unused soap. That was until I tried using some of my son’s AXE Shock Body Wash Gel. It had pieces of mint scrubbing crystals in it and smelled like a very strong industrial cleaner. It made my eyes water and burned hair out of my sinuses.

I also bought some nice soap and tried to explain that this was a better way to keep clean and get rid of all these plastic bottles. They just end up having a third of the gel/crap stuck to the bottom, unused or in some landfill somewhere. This suggestion was met with outrage and angry stares.

Well, if it was up to me, I think an ideal solution would be something like this:

Yea, it’s called MAN 2.0. It’s a combination body, shampoo and shaving bar. I guess once we use up the other 40 containers I’ll give this a shot.

I’m not going to kid myself and think that we’ll end up with my ideal solution. However, I am hoping to go from 40 to about six bottles total.

Frug rules for containing shampoo gluttony

Don’t buy any more shampoo until the current three year inventory is used up.
When you must buy shampoo, soap etc. open it up in the store and smell it, they won’t mind. You are a great customer.
Replace all body wash with a quality bar of soap.
Find a good combo shampoo conditioner.

That’s it, end of rant. Look for future rants on other types of individual containers of crap. I’m happy to have problems as insignificant as these, and share my futile attempts to save the planet.